The Claims of War
by Asarhia
Summary: The Great War is over and Harry is the one victorious. Whilst she sees her beloved Dark Lord fall down, none other than Bellatrix begs Harry to claim her and her sister Narcissa and to save them from the merciless walls of Azkaban. But will he? And why?
1. Prologue

**Prologue**

"No!" the screams of a young woman echoed through the skies. "No!" she screamed once more, falling down on her knees on the dirt of the earth, and softly touching the lifeless body of the man she once loved.

"No," she whispered now, slowly taking in what had happened. The impossible, the thing no one believed that could happen. He, that stupid little brat, had killed the Lord, the Dark Lord, the man who had so easily taken so many lives now had lost his own.

"No!" she now screamed the cry of a lion out of the hunt, as she brutally attacked young Harry Potter, without even having the decency of taking out her wand to hurt him. It did not matter, as long as he would die.

The young boy seemed to be taken a back by this sudden attack, but the woman's slaps were quite fragile, and although furious, he could take her down if he wanted to. The question was: did he want to?

Then, as sudden as they had started, the slapping stopped. The woman was crying now instead, hard and loud, unable to stop even if her life would depend on it. Harry knew why she was crying, but he simply could not understand a creature as evil as Bellatrix Lestrange was able to show such strong feelings towards anyone, not even her beloved Dark Lord.

Before he even knew it, Harry had put his arms around her and pulled her close. She did not even notice, and continued to cry, but Harry wondered instantly why he was doing this. Why was he trying to comfort the woman he hated so much? Why did it affect him in this way that she had actually shown human feelings? Why?

He took in his surroundings. There were many dead bodies lying on the battlefield, and he could even swear he had seen Luna fall down not too far away from him. But it didn't really matter. The only ones fighting now were fighting a worthless cause and they knew it. The Dark Lord was dead. Soon, all Death Eaters would surrender or flee, but eventually they would all end up in Azkaban anyway. The prophecy was fulfilled.

But here she lay, helplessly in his arms, like a broken porcelain doll, all madness that once possessed her had died with the death of her master and to be honest, she reminded Harry more of a young, lost girl than of a wicked madwoman.

"Harry!" someone called, with a voice Harry recognised as Hermiones. "You killed him! You…What are you doing?" she asked on a bewildered tone, staring down at him strangely.

"It's not the time," he said sharply. "Who has lived? Who is dead? You should go check on that, Herms," he kind of ordered her.

"I already did," she said, sort of offended. "Luna fell, as did Fred. Neville is badly injured."

"And the Death Eaters?"

"Most of them are, well, dead. Lucius fled, but Tonks has gone after him."

"Who lived?" Harry wanted to know.

"Lestrange, Narcissa, Lucius, Draco even. Snape, too. Some others, not that many."

"Cissy!" the woman in Harry's arms suddenly cried out. She grasped and held on to Harry's shirt. "No!" she told him. "No! You cannot have her arrested! Not Cissy! No!" There was such devastation speaking from her eyes that if he would have been able to do anything about it, Harry would have. He began to notice why Bella always got what she wanted; and he realized she was just about as unpredictable as possible.

Hermione raised her eyebrows at the sight of a begging Bellatrix, but Harry simply said: "I am sorry. There is nothing I can do about it."

Bella shot him a look as though he was crazy. "You," she said slowly, "you murdered my master, the Darkest Lord of all times, and you say you cannot keep my sister from prison? Liar! Liar! Claim her then, if you do not know how you must do this. Claim her to be your property! Please!" She hung on to him even more, supporting on him, leaning on him. "You won, you can do this," she assured him. "Please, just do this. She would not survive Azkaban!"

To be quite honest, Harry could not care less whether or not Narcissa Malfoy would survive Azkaban, but he could not say that so bluntly, not to this helpless creature that was hanging on to him for support.

Somewhere deep inside of him, he had to admit he had always found Bellatrix Black to be an attractive woman. A bit too old for his preferences, but attractive still. She had this sophisticated look that made her look she was always in control. But now, now she was completely losing it, Harry found her to suddenly become his number one object of desire. Maybe it was everything at once; the feeling of holding this perfect-shaped, knowingly woman in his young arms and the fact he had fulfilled a prophecy today and managed to kill the Dark Lord. One way or another, he did not want to let go at all.

"Come on Harry," Hermione urged. "You have to hand her over to the Aurors, so they can parrest her too."

Bella's eyes widened and she looked even more scared at the thought of having to be in Azkaban again herself. Harry suddenly wondered what had turned this beautiful woman into an insane murderer. She could tell him. She could tell him why she had killed Sirius. Tell him why she had tortured the Longbottoms. If only she could stay with him, then she could tell him. Then he could know the truth.

"No," he said in a determine tone of voice. "I will not have them arrest her. But I don't know how to do this…claming…"

"It's simple," Bella quickly assured him. "You go over to those Aurors and say you want to claim your prize for the war. It's an old habit; you can then claim me and Cissy and you will have our properties too. They will take our wands away, and we will be your servants."

"You would want to lower yourself to being a servant, Black?" Hermione cruelly shot at the woman.

She did not even try to reply, she simply looked desperately at beggingly at Harry, but he had already made his decision anyway.

"Can you get up?" he asked Bellatrix. She sniffed, let go of him and got up rather uneasily, but she did manage to stand anyway. Harry had never seen anyone that weak and although there was already a glimpse of the old, fight-worthy Bella coming back, she still depended on him to save her from Azkaban once again.

He wondered why he was doing this. What use had he in claiming the lestrange mansion and the Malfoy property? Why would he want Bellatrix and Narcissa as his property? All these questions hunted his mind, but they were irrelevant. He knew why, he just did not want to understand.

"There you are, Harry," Tonks said as she saw him coming closer. "Ah, Bellatrix…Looking forward to spending another ten years or more in Azkaban?" she asked the woman tauntingly.

"She is not going to Azkaban," Harry said in a determined tone of voice. "I have come to claim my prize," he said to Tonks, on a very business-like sounding tone. "I wish to claim Bellatrix Lestrange and Narcissa Malfoy as my property."

Everyone seemed to silence, and Lupin turned around, a big 'what the hell' written all over his face, but Harry did not even move. He was the winner in all of this, and he wanted a prize. He wanted the woman, leaning on his shoulder, to be his. He wanted to threat her like the dirt of the earth, he wanted to torture her for what she had done to Sirius, but at the same time he wanted to help her erase her old wounds and fight for the future she never had to begin with.

"You want to claim those two? Why would you want that?" Ron asked. "They are Death Eaters for god's sake!"

"I have my reasons," Harry simply replied. "Now, can I have my prize?"

"Fine then," Tonks gave in, very unwillingly. She roughly grabbed Narcissa's wrist and jerked her into Harry's direction. "And I hope you have a splendid time with them, Harry, whatever the hell it is you are upto."

Harry did not reply: he did not even know this himself.


	2. Chapter 1

**Chapter 1**

The Malfoy Manor was as huge as Harry always imagined it and now completely belonged to him, as well as the Riddle Estate and the Lestrange Mansion. It was hard to believe he had changed from a fairly wealthy pureblooded wizard into one of the richest wizards alive.

"This place is freaking huge," Ron exclaimed, as he continued jaggling along next to Harry. "No wonder Malfoy was always such a spoiled brat." He did not bother to apologise to Narcissa for making that comment either; to him the former Black women truly had lost any dignity they may have had.

Ron had asked Harry what this meant, him 'owning' Narcissa and Bellatrix, while they walked ahead of the two women into the direction of the big front door of the huge manor. He had mentioned Ginny a couple of times, stressing the fact that the idea of her boyfriend living with two elder, beautiful women would not be appealing to her. Harry did not respond.

He liked Ginny, but she was a child. When he held her in his arms, he felt nothing near to the sensation he felt when he held Bellatrix. He loved Ginny alright, but he began to realize now this was more in a brotherly loving way. He felt no lust nor passion for her, unlike what he felt for the beautiful, tormented black-haired woman walked several inches behind him.

He had hated her all his life, hated her still, couldn't care less about her but still wanted to know her better. It was the why that bothered him, the why that had urged him not to sent her to Azkaban, to know the why behind her acts; and Voldemort's.

Bellatrix already had recovered, or at least a little. While Harry opened the doors to let them in, he noticed Narcissa continiously sobbing over the loss of her boy (although Draco was not dead, but only sentenced to Azkaban) and her husband. She had nothing left in this world but her sister, and a broken woman she sure was. Bellatrix on the other hand, seemed to find her strength back. She still looked devastated and heart-broken, but it was as if now, now the terror of Azkaban was taken away, she felt as though she still had a future. Whether that was as a servant of Harry Potter, a boy whom she loathed or not, it did not matter. She never really valued freedom that much.

"Miss Malfoy," Harry said as politely as he could, since he realized the only crimes narcissa ever commited were getting married to a murderer, "if you want, you can go and rest somewhere. I am sure you know your way better around here than I do."

"Thank you," Bellatrix replied in her sister's place. "I will bring Cissy to bed, if you do not mind."

He did. He wanted her near him; and half of that feeling came out of security measures. Of course, Bella would be insane to try and murder him without even having a wand, but she was known for her insanity. He wondered if she would try to kill him in his sleep tonight, but he doubted she would. After all; had he just not given her the only chance she could ever get?

As soon as the women had left, Ron quickly turned to his friend and asked: "Harry, has killing Voldemort really affected your brain? What the hell are you thinking, taking that insane madwoman and her sister into your house? Claiming them? Taking care of them? Have you lost it? What spell did she put on you?"

"None," Harry said emotionlessly. He just sighed and leaned on one of the small tables in the entrance hall of the Malfoy property. "I really don't know why, Ron, but I think I…I want to know why she killed him. Sirius, I mean. I want to know why…She does not appear to be insane anymore, Ron," he told his best friend, struggling with the words he was planning to use, "she seems…normal. That is what scares me the most, that is what I want to find out."

"Then you should have gone visit her a couple of times in Azkaban, not take her into your own damned house!" Ron exclaimed. "Harry, I know women like Bellatrix Black, alright? She would try to seduce any man alive, whether that be the Dark Lord or her husband or her sister's husband! Women like her don't care! You listen to me Harry, this decision of yours will ruin everything you and Ginny ever had, it…"

"Ron, as much as I appreciate your advice," Harry said exhaustingly to his friend, "I am in need of some rest right now. I will think about your words tomorrow, if you want me to, but right now I would just like to spend some time alone. The battle has exhausted me too, you know."

"I know, mate," Ron said, "but how can you rest properly when that madwoman can grab a knife every moment and stab you with it?"

"Trust me, Ron, for some reason I can. Now, I would kindly ask you to leave. Tell Ginny I said hey and…"

"She hated you for telling her you could not come to the final battle you know," Ron suddenly said. "She will want to see you soon."

"That can be arranged. Just not…now."

"You really don't love her, do you?" Ron asked, and Harry could hear the hurt in his voice. He knew his beloved sister really liked Harry ,but he also knew he did not like her quite that much.

"We will see," he replied vaguely, as he escorted Ron out of the house. As soon as his red-haired, chatterbox friend had left, he sighed relieved and collapsed on one of the soft chairs standing in the huge entrance hall of the manor.

"Although I hate to say it, the red-head had a point," a familiar voice said. Harry looked up and saw Bellatrix walking down the stairs. She looked as though she could faint any minute, but the tears were gone. She was hurting, but she tried hard not to show it. This was the Bellatrix Harry always knew and remembered, apart from the fact now she did not look insane at all.

"What point?" he asked on a tired tone.

"Your girlfriend will not like this," she said flatly, as she walked over to Harry and stopped a few inches before the chair he was sitting on. "You know girls, they get jealous easily. Purebloods, real purebloods then, hardly have that problem. Cissy was never really jealous when I borrowed her husband for the night, and she could have mine too if she wanted to, but Rodolphus was always a bit too hard for her liking."

Harry realised this were things he certainly did not want to know, but the fact he knew it now, made him yearn to know even more. He did not realise it was common in pureblood families to switch partners for the night; or perhaps only the Black sisters did such things.

"Cissy is asleep now," Bellatrix continued on the same airy, emotionless tone. "She would have said thanks to you, but she is too sad to do so. She misses her son, which is understandable I guess. So, I am sorry, Master, as she can do nothing for you right now. I am more than willing to help you though, if needed."

It felt strange to Harry that someone called him Master, but at the same time he enjoyed the feeling. Bellatrix Black Lestrange, the beautiful woman sitting in front of him, the woman who had so easily captured the hearts of many strong men, was now totally his to do as he pleased. He could torture her, if he wanted to or order her to tell him why she killed her own cousin, but he was too tired and too distracted to think about neither of those things. What he really wanted to do right now, was touch her hair, hold her close, show her that he, for some reason, cared. He had every right to do something like that, but he simply could not. She was his property now, but she was still a woman of flesh and blood, a murderess, a Death Eater.

Part of him despised her, part of him longed for her. He could not decide which part he wanted to give into right now.

"Will you not miss your husband whilst you are here?" he asked out of nowhere, then cursed himself for even having the gut to ask such a question out loud.

Bellatrix simply shrugged. "I think I will miss him at some point," she replied, "but it is not like I cannot live without him. I spent seven years in prison with only his company to help me through those long days, now I am sure I could do quite a while without him."

"You never really did love him then, did you?" Harry asked.

"Young Master," Bella replied, somewhat amused, "love is such a superficial matter. I did not marry Rodolphus out of love, although I knew he loved me from the start. I married him because he was better than most of the men walking around. Sure, he is a murderer, somewhat insane and a Death Eater, but I am all of that too." She then sighed. "I must be boring you with this, Master,…"

"You are not, continue," he ordered her and only now realized how easy it was to boss people around.

"Well, I guess there was a time I did love Rodolphus. It was ages ago, and the autumn of the year we were going to get married. It was before we met the Dark Lord; and we did not even know about his existence. Of course, there were always other men trying to get my attention or others girls fighting for Rodolphus, but we knew we belonged together. If everything had stayed the way it was then,…well lets say neither of us would probably have become as evil as we are considered to be now."

"What happened?"

"The Dark Lord came, and along with him the revolution I was longing for. I turned my back on Rodolphus as soon as I figured out the Dark Lord favoured me. I wronged my husband, as much as I wronged my sister and even my cousin. I know you will never understand, Harry," she said now intentionally using his name, "but there has not a day gone by I did not cry for my cousin's death."

There was a silence between them. Neither of them spoke a word, but the air tensioned and they could both feel something sensitive had been touched.

"Let me be," Harry suddenly said to her. "Go and play your sadistic mind games somewhere else, Bellatrix. Your Dark Lord has died, have you got no more tears left to cry?"

The expression on her face darkened and she shot him an angry look, the old insanity of before flashing in her eyes. Then she calmed down and regained her self-control.

"Well, Master, perhaps I really do not have any tears to cry," she said slowly. "Perhaps I feel like I have cried quite enough for all the men in my life whilst all they did was hurt me. I am dead, Potter, dead inside. You took away the last thing that mattered to me – and I could not have been more thankful."

With those words, she turned around and walked upstairs, leaving Harry in his chair, stunned, not able to speak but wondering what insanity he had now brought upon him.

It was midnight, or so the clock in the great entrance hall of the manor said. Harry had not slept at all so far; he kept replaying all the events of the past few days in his mind, starting with the Order finding out where the Death Eater headquarters were and ending with the argument he had with Bellatrix.

He got up at once. He knew he would not get anymore sleep tonight if he kept going on like this. Now he should go apologise to Bellatrix and then try to see if he could still manage to rest a bit before dawn.

Lazily, Harry walked up the stairs and tried every door he saw. He slowly began to realise searching for someone in this huge mansion was like looking for a Muggle in Hogwarts: impossible. Then, as he began to give up hope, he found them.

Them were Narcissa and Bellatrix, sharing the same bed, in the same room, Bella's arm wrapped safely around her sister. Although Harry realised Bellatrix had probably only stayed to comfort Narcissa, he could not help but feel something tension inside of him when the candlelight fell on the two sisters, pressed so closely together that all kinds of thoughts raced through his mind.

He had never really given Narcissa Malfoy a good look, since she was well…Draco's mother, but now the candlelight fell on her deep blonde hair, he realised she was a beautiful woman as well, much like Bellatrix but different as well.

It took him several minutes to remember why he came here in the first place, but then he walked over to the bed and gently rubbed Bellatrix' shoulder. "Bella, wake up," he whispered.

"I was not asleep," she replied instantly, scaring him to death. She smiled at him as she turned around and faced him. "I hardly ever sleep, Master, I am sorry if I scared you.

"It is alright," Harry replied, "I wanted to…"

"Perhaps these matters are better to be discussed outside," she said. "I would not want Cissy to walk up due to us chatting, now she finally fell asleep."

Since he had no choice whatsoever, Harry followed her on to the corridor. It was only then, when she was standing in the light of the many candles in the hallway, he could see her clearly.

She was wearing a short, black nightgown which was slightly see-through, but enough to let a man's imagination run wild. He wondered in the back of his mind if she had put it on on purpose, instinctively knowing he would come upstairs to apologise soon enough. It would not have surprised him, after all Bellatrix was a grown up woman and knew more about men than anyone else Harry had ever met.

"Now, Master, what matters did you want to discuss?" she asked lightly.

"I wanted to apologise, Bellatrix. I am sorry, I should not have said the things I said before," he told her, and only then realised he had just apologised to the woman who had killed his godfather.

But every thought of Sirius vanquished at once, as Bellatrix smiled at him. A real, genuine smile, not the insane smile he usually saw on her face.

"It is I who am sorry, Master," she said. "Today was probably as rough on you as it was on me. You seem very tense…Is there any way I can help?"

He wondered how many times she had asked a man that innocent-looking but deeply deceiving question and how many times the one she had asked it to had replied that sleeping with him would be the only way to help him out of the problems he was currently facing. In one way, it was true, but on the other hand Harry did not want to lower himself to that level.

She would do anything he would order her to do, and Harry knew it, he knew he would only have to speak the magical words and everything he was imagining right now would become reality. But he did not want to speak them, and not for the fact the woman in front of him was the one who killed his godfather, it had more to do with the fact he did not want to be the next one in line to do that to her.

He remembered something Sirius had once told her about his cousin, in one of the very few talks they had about her. "Bella is a tricky one," Sirius had warned him. "Always has and always will be. One look of her, can get even the biggest coward to take up a sword. One word of her, is enough to let even the most powerful wizard surrender to his heart instead of his mind. One touch of her is enough to let a king give up an entire kingdom at once and one kiss of her is enough to tear the entire magical world apart. She knows that, and she always uses it in her advantage. Bella has no morality, no self-respect, no love whatsoever. Perhaps in a way, you could say she is even more dangerous than Voldemort.

"No," Harry replied, besides himself. "There is nothing you can do, Bellatrix. Nothing at all."

She just smirked, the famous smirk he ought to be the Malfoys, but which Draco most definitely had inherited from the Blacks, since Bella's was an exact copy of that one.

"You know, Master," she said in a somewhat sarcastic tone, "you can do as you please or deny it as long as you want to. Go ahead. But I know we are both too much alike not to do this. You may fight the powers of darkness as much as you want, but you are eventually going to give in anyway. You lived with that part of Voldemort's soul inside of you for so long that there is no way you can get all goody-two-shoes now. You killed people, Master. Even if you considered them to be evil, does that really matter? Or do you only think it does so you would have a better sleep at night? You and your kind called me insane for a very long time, insane because I killed those whom I despised, those whom I thought to be evil. Now you did the exact same, but no one out there is calling you insane. They are praising you, they are worshipping you because you killed someone. That fact alone is enough to drive anyone over the edge, Master. You tasted the sweet sent of death, and you are saying you do not want to talk about that to someone? Then I wonder who is the insane one around here."

There was a moment of silence between the both of them. Her words were truthful and Harry knew he could say nothing to decline them. He was a murderer, and it did not even feel that strange to him; it actually felt quite good to kill the Dark Lord after all. Voldemort had been evil, no doubt about that, but by killing him Harry had proven to be capable of the same kind of evil.

"I am a murderer too Harry," Bellatrix spoke now, her voice not much more than a mere whisper, "and I too was praised for the murders I committed. It seemed as though the praise and the glory made a veil in my mind; it locked out my thoughts that what I was doing was wrong. I am insane, Harry," she said now, the harsh truth of her words blinking behind her eyes, "but not in the way everyone thinks I am. The first person I killed happened long before I even met the Dark Lord or become a Death Eater. The first creature I ever killed was a House Elf, Harry." She seemed to be on the verge of tears now, but strongly held back her emotions.

"Tinky was my very own House Elf, and she always took care of me when mother was not around," Bella confessed. "Mother was hardly around, so soon enough Tinky turned out to be the person I trusted most to. One day I killed her, Harry," she added, not wanting to go into much more details, "and you know what they told me? Mother and father? They said it was alright, they did not even look shocked, told me Tinky could be replaced. I had loved her, I had truly cared for her and they did not understand that. To them, House Elves were just lesser beings, easily replacable. I did not have the easiest parents in the world to communicate with, and perhaps part of all that happened to me is their fault, but I still take most of the blame for it. Cissy did not turn out to be a murderer, like me, and she was raised exactly the same way."

She paused for a moment and then continued her story, her ramblings, but with every word she said she regained something. She regained her dignity, her credibility, her humanity. The more she spoke, the less I thought of Bellatrix Black Lestrange as a murderess, but the more I saw her as something else…another human being.

After about half an hour of talking, Bella and Harry made their way downstairs, to one of the living rooms, were they continued their chat.

"I do not want you to become like me, Harry," Bella said eventually. "Do not think I simply took a turn around when the Dark Lord died, no; I have thought about it a lot before. It was hard for me to let go of my sister and my cousins. Life as a Death Eater is not all happiness and brightness, if you get my point. The Dark Lord tortured me more than any spell I ever cast on the Longbottoms, and I have heard and shivered by the thought of a crucio so many times in my life it became almost like a habit. But you have to understand one thing, Harry: once a Death Eater, always a Death Eater. If I had run, he would have killed me without mercy and anything he might have ever felt for me, would disappear faster than a thought. I could not run, not for my own sake, my sisters sake, Rodolphus sake and even Draco's sake. Sometimes I wish I had the bravery to take them all and run off, but that was wishful thinking. The Dark Lord his power was everywhere and always, even when he was at his weakest."

She now turned completely to Harry, and he could have sworn he saw a tear blinking in the corner of her eye. For the first time in his entire life, he could understand the woman Bellatrix Lestrange was and had become; he could see why she had done as she had done and he realised any person braver than her, would have done the same. It was not courage she lacked, it was the love she felt for those around her, for her sister and her cousin, for her family.

"Harry," she said, as she took his hand and pinched it softly. "The Dark Lord was once a part of my life, but eventually he became my life. I could not think clearly and was not the girl I once was anymore. Although recently I was already breaking out of this charm, you were the one who opened my eyes completely. I thank you for that, although this does not really make it easier for me. He was my world and my life and now I will have to start again from scratch; but perhaps this time, my life will be my own rather than anyone else's."

"It will be, Bella," Harry said softly, as he pulled her closer without even thinking about it and wrapped his arms around her fragile body. They stayed like that for a while, until sleep came and mastered both of their minds, tired as they already were from such a startling day. The Final Battle had come and gone, and it was not like anything Harry had imagined. When he had woken up earlier in the morning, he had known this day he or Lord Voldemort was going to die, but he never could have guessed he would be living on the Malfoy property along with his number two enemy, Bellatrix Lestrange, and even start to like her and maybe even forgive her. It seemed as though the battle, of which he thought would end with the death of Voldemort, had only just begun.


	3. Chapter 2

From now on, updates to this story can only be found at my weblog, Zwinkyness . By the 2nd of july 2008, you should be able to find up to chapter 3 on there, so please keep checking it.

Thank you.


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